COSTAS: It seems that if all of these accusations are false, you are the unluckiest and most persecuted man that any of us has ever heard about.

SANDUSKY: (LAUGHS) I don’t know what you want me to say. I don’t think that these have been the best days of my life.

The nation is talking about Bob Costas’ interview with Jerry Sandusky on Monday’s edition of “Rock Center” on NBC.

Costas appeared on “The Dan Patrick Show” Tuesday morning and advised that he was originally slated to interview Joe Amendola, Sandusky’s attorney. Just before the program was slated to tape, Amendola offered up Sandusky for a phone interview. Costas did not mince words and asked pointed, direct questions. Curiously, Amendola offered up during the interview that the defense believed that they’d discovered the identity of the heretofore unknown victim from the Mike McQuery incident.

“We expect we’re going to have a number of kids, now how many of those so called eight kids we’re not sure, but we anticipate we’re going to have at least several of those kids come forward and say this never happened. This is me, this is the allegation, it never occurred. In fact, one of the toughest allegations…what [Mike] McQueary said he saw, we have information that that child said that never happened,” Amendola said.

Amendola actually said the line “It’s interesting, isn’t it?” when Costas pressed about the fact that the Commonwealth hadn’t been able to locate the victim, but that Amendola and the legal team believed they had.

Here’s a particularly troubling and damning passage from the interview, as transcribed on the TODAY website, that was not included in the “Rock Center” segment.

Asked the question of why so many alleged victims would come forward if nothing inappropriate or illegal had occurred, Sandusky told Costas, “I would guess that there are many young people who would come forward,’’ Sandusky said. “Many more young people who would come forward and say that my methods and what I had done for them made a very positive impact on their life.

“And I didn’t go around seeking out every young person for sexual needs that I’ve helped. There are many that I didn’t have — I hardly had any contact with who I have helped in many, many ways.”

Sandusky’s 16-second response to Costas’ direct question about his sexual attraction to young boys is the No. 1 topic at water coolers. The pause and re-asking of the question are chilling, without question, and the interview as a whole has spawned a whole new line of questions.